Solutions that don’t break the bank, reinvent the wheel or marginalize our teachers are within our grasp. We could have rigorous classes, safe and disciplined schools and treat teachers like valued colleagues rather than easily replaceable cogs, and we could do so tomorrow if we wanted. Disclaimer, this is an opinion and commentary site and should not be confused as a news site. Also know that quite often people may disagree with the opinions posted.

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Saturday, October 10, 2015

DCPS attempts to freeze out the community.

Earlier this week the DCPS school board voted to limit
community input into the radical changing of seventeen schools. The district
was scheduled to vote on the changes in January but most of the school board
members asked for more time to involve their stakeholders. Unfortunately board
members Scot Shine and Jason Fischer, despite the fact none of the schools are
in their districts were able to limit input.

Some of you might be saying, January, geeze how much
time does the community need, that’s three months away. Well let’s think about
it. A few weeks to notify the community and establish working groups, a few
more weeks of meetings, then a few weeks to notify all the stakeholders about
what they decided. And there we have a nice slide into January.

Except, we have holidays coming up which will put
wrenches in many people’s plans. Some of you might be saying but if it’s
important enough it can get done and fair enough though I don’t think we should
be in any rush to radically change our schools.

There is however one more thing you should consider
and that is the district hasn’t formed all the working groups yet nor has any
met, this means the board has voted to limit debate before it has even started.

From WJCT: The proposed changes are for the
2016-17 school year. Board member Becki Couch says she wants working groups to
know pushing back boundary changes to the 2017-18 school year is an option if
working groups recommend an extra year for planning Working group meeting dates have not yet been set.

Here
is another concern people should have and that’s the district has a well-deserved
reputation of ignoring parents and their concerns and that all of these working
groups and community input are just window dressing.

I
like some of the super’s ideas and if changes have to be made then changes have
to be made but cutting off community engagement and rushing headlong into
things is not how we should be doing things.

1 comment:

Let's be clear: it was not DCPS as a whole, but two board members in the minority ignoring the wishes of the majority as well as the community affected. We might infer that Vitti was glad because he wants to push the issue quickly, but he probably was more in a WTF daze. He said do it now, the Board said slow down, and now parliamentary rule maneuvers has the issue back in railroad mode. Latest news: he has scheduled community meetings all over the place. People need to show up in mass and speak out. The message: These are OUR schools and YOU will listen.